Ask Philippa Perry: 'I've got no self-confidence'

Floored by a habit of self-sabotage, Red's agony aunt, psychotherapist Philippa Perry, says it's a common pattern you can identify then break

Q: For as long as I can remember, I’'ve suffered from a lack of confidence. Not that anybody can tell from the outside -– in fact, I tend to be seen as highly assured by those around me. But internally, I'’m usually feeling overwhelmed and terrified. This crops up most of all whenever I get near to becoming successful. It'’s like an engine cutting out, I can go no further. A voice in my head says, ‘'If you continue, everyone will hate you. You don’'t really want this anyway.'’ This means a pattern is emerging in my life: I’'m always on the brink of something brilliant, but I never quite seem to get there. People have begun to notice, too. I’'m deeply frustrated and ashamed, and desperate to change but have no idea how to start. What can I do?

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Katherine, by email

A: I think what you’'ve described will resonate with many of us; it certainly does with me. And it'’s not a new phenomenon, either.– Freud describes a case study of a teacher who balked at his long worked-for promotion. ‘He began to hesitate, depreciated his merits, declared himself unworthy to fill the position designed for him, and fell into a melancholia which unfitted him for all activity for some years... The illness followed close upon the fulfilment of a wish and put an end to all enjoyment of it.’

Recognise yourself in that? Like him, when you'’re on the brink of something, things seem to fall apart. There'’s a common phrase summing up a belief that could lie behind this: ‘too good to be true’. This type of pessimism isn'’t based in truth, but can become so familiar it seems like truth. Even Freud himself, during self-analysis, uncovered that he was operating under this false belief. Freud had always wanted to go to Athens to experience ancient Greek civilisation, but when he eventually got there, he found he couldn'’t enjoy it. He theorised that this stemmed from childhood;– as a toddler he was over-praised, then as a precocious child he was harshly criticised as getting too big for his boots.

Sometimes it feels that the essence of success is to get further than one’'s parents, and yet it seems disloyal to do that. Freud was educated to a far higher level than his tradesman father, who would never have had the means to travel to Athens. Greek civilisation meant far more to Freud than it could to his father and so to enjoy it meant he was betraying his father.

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Perhaps, even though you may have forgotten the incident, or the words used, your body has learned an unwelcome lesson;– that you’'re not allowed to be successful. Perhaps you have unknowingly absorbed a covert instruction that you are not allowed to achieve beyond the success of your parents or of a sibling? Perhaps there'’s a message floating about in your head like one of these: ‘not for the likes of us’; ‘showing off is very unattractive’; ‘don’'t be too clever if you want to find love’; ‘who d’you think you are?’; ‘no better than you ought to be’; ‘don'’t be better than me’; or maybe just looks that conveyed the opposite of approval as you excelled or overtook. If you are able to think how you may have received such an injunction, you will be able to tell yourself in the present, when you feel it, where those feelings belong and give yourself permission to overtake the person you'’re not allowing yourself to.

Another form this type of self-sabotage takes is ‘imposter syndrome’. If you are the first person from your family to enter a particular arena, for example, university or running your own business, it'’s common to feel you don’'t really belong, and an authority figure will come and remove you at any moment to put you back in your ‘rightful’ place. Early training goes deep; it bypasses reason and cuts straight to feeling. The only way to work with it is to allow yourself to feel those fears - feel the engine cutting out, as you describe it –- and carry on anyway. This prescription was brilliantly summed up by the self-help guru Susan Jeffers: ‘feel the fear and do it anyway’.

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